Hey guys. I thought it could be interesting to share this here, maybe clear some things up and get some good info along the way. That client i was talking about in my other thread has decided that the sounds work better as more 16 bit kinds of sounds, like the old sonic games. I'm currently working on a song now that's going to be played inside one of the characters houses. He has a lot of tech gear, tv's, game consoles, computers, etc, so she wanted something electronic that didn't sound anything like techno. Of course, it still has to be upbeat and bright and all of that.

The first thing I decided was that the mixolydian mode would work best. it doesn't feel "traditional" like a normal major scale would, it wouldn't make sense to use any leading tone voicings or harmonic stuff. My second thought was that since i wasn't going for functional harmony as the meat of the piece, i would use riffs instead. The first thing i did was write out a little 1 bar bass riff that i could use for most of the piece. all the rhythms are going to come from that riff so that the piece feels continuous and whole. it also saves me time in the long run, less material to come up with. Next was the first melodic riff, and then all of the melodic material is going to come from that bit. I think I've got a solid enough foundation and enough material for the piece, so i'm gonna let it sit for a while and come back to it when i'm not thinking about it so much.

Here's what I've got so far. All of this was in FL studio 9, mostly using they sytrus synth. I almost used the old 808 sounds for the drum stuff, but decided that would probably sound too "techno" for this, so i used stock synth percussion sounds.

http://soundcloud.com/austing/roys-house

There are some spots that need to be fleshed out a bit more, but this is what I've got so far to get me started.

I hate to give you guys a link like that but I wasn't sure if embedding would be supported on this.

Overall, a solid start that matches what you've described. Interested to see where you take from here.

Thanks,

Nate

Ok, I've got up through the next phrase.

http://soundcloud.com/austing/roys-house-2

I added some upbeats where the bass has those long sustained notes. It sounded pretty incomplete, it's a little better now. It still needs something, but I'm not sure what. I was thinking maybe some sustained notes to fill out some chords, but it doesn't make sense to use long tones to make long tones more interesting in this piece. So, I went with upbeats instead. I'm not sure if they'll stay, but it's something.

The new section changes up the rhythm in the bass, brings back both melodic instruments and all the percussion so far, it ties everything together pretty well I think. I don't know if this section needs a little more interest or not, I'm leaning towards no though. I need to add a little more though, so that when it loops it doesn't cut off the delay/echo effect on the lead instrument.

I kind of hit a roadblock here. I'm 50 seconds short of music on this, and i've run out of tricks and ideas.

http://soundcloud.com/austing/roys-house

i've used the material pretty much to death, and I don't want to repeat what's already been done because it's going to loop. I have enough time to put in a new section, set it up/resolve it blah blah, but i don't know what to do with it. I can't do a slow bit, it wouldn't sound right or fit the part of the game. I don't know if I have enough time or skills to put it in a new key and bring it back convincingly either. I could maybe change some modes, or do a percussion thing, but if i start messing with the texture it may cross over into what the client thinks is "too techno-ish". Any ideas? I know you guys have had this kind of problem before. I'm wracking my brain trying to find a creative solution, and i think it just may be that I don't have all the skills or experience to pull this piece off as is :/

Sounds pretty good man!

After listening to it, I had a few ideas that I thought I'd share with you.

1.) Your texture has been percussive and short so far, so you could use sustained notes / chords and have slower phrase-movement.

2.) You've been primarily mixolydian so far, so you can spice it up by going dorian, which is closely related.

3.) Also, since you've been modal so far, you could also try having definite harmonic movement to establish direction - it does have to be a big V-I cadence, but even a plagal or interrupted cadence would still create direction without causing it to stick out too much. You could even use your short, percussive texture and outline arpeggios - just like Haydn!

4.) Instead of doing a slow-down (which I agree wouldn't sound right,) you could do a "quiet" bit where it's either just bass + drum with an altered bass line, or bass + melody with an altered melody. Then you could gradually add sounds to thicken texture, and then release tension with restatement of your original bit.

5.) You could do a retrograde of your first bass riff or first melody riff...or both.

6.) You could also do an inversion of your melody, but keep it diatonic with respect to the mode.

7.) You could use different patches with the same melodic / bass material.

8.) You could have a "break down" section where you alternate music with silence.


These are just a few ideas to help you get the ball rolling!

Thanks for that response, that was a great help! I tried of few of them, and she didn't like having the texture change to mostly percussion. She also thought that other modes sounded too weird, something like that. didn't fit for whatever reason.
Here's the latest version, still waiting to hear back from her on it.

http://soundcloud.com/austing/roys-house-1

I did more rhythmic stuff, built up the texture one instrument at a time and brought that all down, and then had a similar melody in a different register. She's very picky about sounds, once she's got a sound in her head she won't go for anything else, which is a bit difficult to work with, but it's a good challenge. This also has some basic mixing done to it, a little panning etc, and i changed out the plugin doing the delay on the lead instrument so i could have some more control over it. since the lead instrument is panned right and the delay is panned left, i panned the marimba soft left. Is that bothering anybody? It sounds balanced in all the places i've listened to it, but i haven't had a chance to get nice monitors yet. I also did some light compression, but that should be alright. I've got a friend doing a sound design/engineering major who helped me out on that part of it

She loves it! That song works perfectly for what she wanted, and she doesn't want to change anything about it. Sweet.

haha, nice! I was listening to the piece while reading the thread and... hey it was good listening!

I was sure it was the final track and I would have read the final comments in the end.

Congratulations for the job! Thumbs up, friend :)